jaguar
Dec 9, 05, 11:31 am
Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 9, 2005 12:00 AM
A standing-room-only crowd topping 400, the largest ever for a luncheon of the Economic Club of Phoenix.
Two standing ovations, one before the keynote speaker said a word.
A line of autograph seekers.
All for the customer service gospel according to Herb.
Herb, as in Herb Kelleher, co-founder and executive chairman of Southwest Airlines.
The charismatic, unscripted and often off-color CEO held court in a ballroom at Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa for 90 minutes Thursday after he received the second-annual Global Services Leader of the Year award from Arizona State University's prestigious Center for Services Leadership.
Hotelier J.W. Marriott was the first recipient last year.
Kelleher is no stranger to Arizona. Southwest Airlines has one of its biggest operations here, with more than 4,000 employees, and Phoenix is its second-busiest city after Las Vegas, with nearly 200 daily departures.
In between his trademark one-liners, the 74-year-old Kelleher shared, for the zillionth time, several of the keys to Southwest's unrivaled success in the hypercompetitive airline industry.
In classic Southwest style, he eschewed business jargon, statistics or MBA case studies and broke from traditional notions of customer service and employee relations.
"The furnishing of customer service really has to come from the heart and the soul rather than the brain," he said.
Low fares are what spring to mind for most people when they think of Southwest, Kelleher said, but he sees the airline's real trump card as customer service.
It is rooted not in a "customer is always right" policy, but in its employees, how it hires, trains and treats them.
"I don't think you can have great customer service unless you recognize that your employees come first," he said.
He told a story about a vice president who years ago complained that it was easier for flight attendants, pilots and mechanics to get in to see Kelleher than it was for him.
His response: "They're more important than you."
Kelleher said Southwest has the opposite of top-down management. He says the airline's headquarters is there to serve the line employees, not the other way around.
Officers are required to spend a day on the front lines each quarter. They often pass through the Phoenix hub.
When it hires workers of all stripes, the airline is going for attitude, Kelleher said.
"We don't like to, but we will sacrifice expertise, education and experience to get a good attitude," he said.
How does it screen for attitude? The airline often holds group interviews. It asks potential workers to tell a story about how they got out of an embarrassing situation.
What many candidates don't realize, he said, is that the airline isn't zeroing in on their performance. Rather, it is watching to see if others are paying attention. If they're too self-absorbed, they don't get hired.
The system isn't foolproof, of course. Kelleher told of a city that had a rash of customer complaints after years of a spotless record.
The company looked into the situation and discovered that an airport supervisor had turned into a "mini-Mussolini."
"You find out from your customers what's going on," he said.
Execution of what Kelleher calls the Southwest spirit is not easy. It requires an enormous effort day in, day out, he said.
The Dallas-based airline used to host other companies interested in its hiring, training and customer service secrets but found that what they wanted was a simple formula to copy and take home.
"It's very hard to match, it's very hard to imitate," he said.
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 9, 2005 12:00 AM
A standing-room-only crowd topping 400, the largest ever for a luncheon of the Economic Club of Phoenix.
Two standing ovations, one before the keynote speaker said a word.
A line of autograph seekers.
All for the customer service gospel according to Herb.
Herb, as in Herb Kelleher, co-founder and executive chairman of Southwest Airlines.
The charismatic, unscripted and often off-color CEO held court in a ballroom at Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa for 90 minutes Thursday after he received the second-annual Global Services Leader of the Year award from Arizona State University's prestigious Center for Services Leadership.
Hotelier J.W. Marriott was the first recipient last year.
Kelleher is no stranger to Arizona. Southwest Airlines has one of its biggest operations here, with more than 4,000 employees, and Phoenix is its second-busiest city after Las Vegas, with nearly 200 daily departures.
In between his trademark one-liners, the 74-year-old Kelleher shared, for the zillionth time, several of the keys to Southwest's unrivaled success in the hypercompetitive airline industry.
In classic Southwest style, he eschewed business jargon, statistics or MBA case studies and broke from traditional notions of customer service and employee relations.
"The furnishing of customer service really has to come from the heart and the soul rather than the brain," he said.
Low fares are what spring to mind for most people when they think of Southwest, Kelleher said, but he sees the airline's real trump card as customer service.
It is rooted not in a "customer is always right" policy, but in its employees, how it hires, trains and treats them.
"I don't think you can have great customer service unless you recognize that your employees come first," he said.
He told a story about a vice president who years ago complained that it was easier for flight attendants, pilots and mechanics to get in to see Kelleher than it was for him.
His response: "They're more important than you."
Kelleher said Southwest has the opposite of top-down management. He says the airline's headquarters is there to serve the line employees, not the other way around.
Officers are required to spend a day on the front lines each quarter. They often pass through the Phoenix hub.
When it hires workers of all stripes, the airline is going for attitude, Kelleher said.
"We don't like to, but we will sacrifice expertise, education and experience to get a good attitude," he said.
How does it screen for attitude? The airline often holds group interviews. It asks potential workers to tell a story about how they got out of an embarrassing situation.
What many candidates don't realize, he said, is that the airline isn't zeroing in on their performance. Rather, it is watching to see if others are paying attention. If they're too self-absorbed, they don't get hired.
The system isn't foolproof, of course. Kelleher told of a city that had a rash of customer complaints after years of a spotless record.
The company looked into the situation and discovered that an airport supervisor had turned into a "mini-Mussolini."
"You find out from your customers what's going on," he said.
Execution of what Kelleher calls the Southwest spirit is not easy. It requires an enormous effort day in, day out, he said.
The Dallas-based airline used to host other companies interested in its hiring, training and customer service secrets but found that what they wanted was a simple formula to copy and take home.
"It's very hard to match, it's very hard to imitate," he said.